


Assistance Required

by orphan_account



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Burns, Butt Plugs, Gen, Object Insertion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:51:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After burning his fingertips before a flight, Martin has a little problem down below he needs Douglas to help him out with...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assistance Required

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the cabinpres_fic prompt meme: <http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/6625.html?thread=11428833#cmt11428833>
> 
>  
> 
> _"Martin needs assistance getting a small adult toy or other object out of his bum"_
> 
>  
> 
> \------

‘Ow! Fuck!’

Douglas startled where he sat in the MJN ‘lounge’ area and turned towards the sudden cursing and crashing coming from the little corner kitchen. Martin, having been quietly tidying things away from lunch, had dashed over to the sink from the counter and was now holding both his hands under the cold tap.

‘Martin? Are you all right?’ Douglas asked, getting out of the mouldy arm chair and walking over to the man.

‘Ow, yes. Fine. I just managed to burn my fingertips on the mini toasting grill. Didn’t realise it was still hot and grabbed it – I was going to clean off all that gunk it’s covered in.’

Douglas looked across at the kitchen appliance in question (one of the few to survive its stay with MJN since it kept Arthur distracted on standby duty like today) and grimaced at the gooey mess of melted cheese, barbeque sauce and presumably bacon that coated the inside.

‘Ah. That would have been Arthur. He just made some monstrous toasty creation filled with what can only be described as disgustingly bizarre heart-attack fuel. You must have missed him before you came back from the hangar.’

‘However long ago the metal was still red hot,’ Martin muttered and hissed as he tenderly tapped his fingertips against one another to test the skin. ‘Only minor burns, but it does sting. God, I think I managed to get _all_ my fingertips. Just my luck.’

‘Here, let me see.’ Douglas took the captain’s hands and glanced over the red, sore looking patches. It did appear to be just his fingertips, and certainly no worse than first degree burns. ‘Hmm, not to worry. Should heal up in a few days.’

‘God, I hope so. This’ll make my van jobs this weekend awkward if I can’t actually _lift_ anything.’

Martin was still scowling down at his hands when Arthur burst into the room, cheerfully greeting them both with a ‘Hello, chaps!’ and happily humming something vaguely tuneful. He came to a stop at the look on Martin’s face.

‘Skip! Has something happened?’

‘It’s fine, Arthur. I just burnt my fingers on the grill that’s all, nothing serious.’

‘Oh no! I was using the grill! Did I leave it on?’

‘It was turned off,’ Douglas reassured Arthur who was starting to look distressed at the idea he’d caused Martin any sort of pain, ‘But I think Sir here was a little too hasty in picking it up before it had time to cool down. Not to worry, burnt fingers never stopped anyone flying a plane.’

‘Oh, okay. That’s good.’ Arthur slumped with relief – then perked up again in a matter of seconds. ‘Do you need bandages? Wrapping bandages is _brilliant!_ ’

Whilst Martin hastily assured an enthusiastic Arthur that no further medical attention was required, Carolyn strode in through the portakabin door. The client had finally called and it wasn’t long before concerns about Martin’s mishap were forgotten in the flurry of orders being given to file the flight plan and prepare GERTI for take off.

\---

A few hours later, situated on the flight deck, Douglas had nearly forgotten about Martin’s burns. It wasn’t until the man beside him gave a little hiss after reaching up to fiddle with his shirt collar that he suddenly remembered.

‘Not bothering you too much is it?’ Douglas asked, glancing across at the red skin on Martin’s finger pads that were still swollen and painful looking.

Martin shook his head. ‘No, no, just keep catching them on things. Sorry,’ he apologised.

Douglas scoffed. ‘Well, we do need _some_ thing to fill the silence up here.’

‘What, and my manly whimpering fits the bill? I didn’t think I was _that_ bad at the whole Films That Rhyme game.’

‘You did lose by 34 to 6. That’s _fairly_ terrible.’

Martin rolled his eyes, but was in a good enough mood to not to get defensive at the dig.

After a little while, Douglas gave a light hum. ‘How about listing all the things you can’t do now you’ve grilled your fingers.’

‘Is that your idea of a new game? I didn’t take you for a sadist, Douglas.’

‘Oh, hardly. I’m only curious about the unexpected limitations not having fingertips at your disposal might bring. It’s an interesting exercise, and a practical one for you. I did have to fill in the flight plan since you couldn’t even hold a pen properly.’

‘True.’ Martin tapped his fingers lightly on the control panel whilst he thought. ‘I suppose using my mobile will be awkward. Or at least holding it since my thumbs are fine.’

‘What about…using a keyboard? Reading a book? Peeling a banana?’

‘Eating a sandwich, opening doors, using a remote…’

‘Juggling, cracking eggs, grating cheese, sipping at a glass of pineapple juice...’ Douglas suddenly gasped and struck a pose of mock epiphany. ‘Performing a rendition of Paganini’s _Caprice No.9_ on the violin, _allegretto_!’

‘Ugh, just holding a knife and fork. I’m going to have to be careful doing _everything_ for the next few days until it heals up.’ Martin sighed, glaring at the pesky little burns on his fingers.

‘How about…attending nightly to the little Martin?’

‘What? Douglas!’ Martin squawked, cheeks flooding with colour.

The smirk on Douglas’s face only grew at the chance to tease his captain into a deeper shade of crimson.

‘No twiddling the nips? Playing hanky-panky? Or maybe even exploring the delights to be had between the…cheeks?’

At first Douglas simply sat back and enjoyed the sight of an indignant Martin spluttering in his seat about _inappropriate topics of conversation_ , until the man stopped and froze mid-sentence as if struck by a sudden revelation.

Then, with a strangely strained and very Martin-like attempt at nonchalance, he squeaked something about using the loo and ran off.

Douglas blinked and stared after him.

_…What on earth was that about?_

Part of him boggled at the idea that the man might actually be going to check – in the plane’s toilet no less – whether a little time to himself was actually still possible. But that was ludicrous. And whilst he was a bit prudish at times, Martin wasn’t the kind to be so embarrassed or mortified by sex talk that he would run away either. They’d had far more lewd discussions in their time, especially if the captain was a little tipsy (much to both his and Carolyn’s hilarity one night in Dubai).

At a loss and perplexed by this turn of events, Douglas waited with ever growing curiosity for Martin to return. But when the man came back after 5 minutes he simply clamped his mouth shut muttering, ‘I’m fine, everything’s fine, nothing to worry about!’ and wouldn’t budge on the matter. Although intensely curious as to what Martin’s mysterious and clearly blush-worthy issue was, Douglas admitted defeat, thinking he’d most likely wheedle it out of the younger man later…

\---

It was later, in fact, that Douglas was faced with the job of wheedling something else out of Martin.

‘Um, Douglas…?’

Sharing, as per Carolyn’s usual stingy habits, a twin room together, Douglas glanced up at a rather grim looking Martin who had just exited the bathroom. The man stood in the doorway in his rather threadbare cotton pyjamas with an odd look of reluctance and worry.

‘Yes?’

‘Uh…’ The man shifted his feet on the carpet uncomfortably, and stared at the ground. ‘I um, I have a favour to ask of you.’

Douglas quirked an eyebrow. ‘Ask away.’

‘I mean a really big favour.’ The younger man sighed. ‘As in, this is going to be really, really awkward but I _really_ need your help right now and I am going to hate myself forever, but I need to ask you to do this for me.’

‘Bloody hell, Martin, what’s happened?’ Douglas asked.

‘Nothing! I-I mean nothing serious. I just – this is mainly really embarrassing. For me. Maybe for you. Actually most likely for you too. I um…’ Martin was looking anywhere but at Douglas, jittering nervously on his heels and still standing in the bathroom doorway. ‘I need you to, um…’

Sitting across the room from the man, Douglas waited impatiently as Martin squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath.

‘I need you to use your hands, Douglas, because mine are all burnt and cannot grip anything – and trust me I have desperately tried to do so over the last twenty minutes – to help me remove a-a…a butt plug. From my arse.’

There was a pause.

A rather long one.

For once in Martin’s presence, Douglas was lost for words. He stared at the man, whose eyes were now firmly trained on the ground and cheeks pink.

‘A butt plug,’ he repeated, ‘I stress, a _butt plug_ , up your arse.’

‘–Douglas–’

‘–and it’s stuck.’

‘It’s not stuck! I just can’t grip it myself because of the burns,’ Martin protested, face now blazing red. ‘Will you help me or not Douglas?’

The older man struggled to keep a straight face, and then burst out laughing. Flushed to his ears, Martin looked ready for the earth to swallow him up.

‘Oh, Martin, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ Douglas gasped, covering his mouth with one hand and desperately trying to restrain himself. ‘But it _is_ funny.’

‘Yes, yes I realise it’s _hilarious_ I’ve got something stuck up my bum and I’ve pretty much sacrificed my dignity to you for the _rest of my life_ by giving you the ultimate teasing fodder, but can you _please_ try and be serious about this.’

Douglas took a few moments to calm himself, coughing and spluttering as he attempted to clear his throat until he could trust himself to speak. Martin was hunched over looking absolutely miserable and Douglas felt a stab of sympathy. But only a little stab.

‘Okay,’ he eventually managed to say in a steady voice, ‘I’ll help you.’

‘You will?’

‘Yes.’

‘ _Thank_ you–’

‘–However,’ Douglas interrupted, ‘you cannot possibly get away with not telling me why on _earth_ you have a butt plug up there in the first place.’

Martin groaned and buried his face in his hands. ‘Can’t you at least leave me with some dignity intact, Douglas?’ he pleaded.

‘Well, unless you’d like to go ask Arthur or _Carolyn_ for help–’

‘–God no, that would be even more unbearable–’

‘–then I suggest you answer my question. You know I’d just speculate something far worse than the truth anyway.’

The captain grunted his assent, and with a noticeable wince, perched himself down gingerly on the chair beside the bed. He gave a distracted cough and looked anywhere but Douglas.

‘Okay, I um. I…used to have a girlfriend,’ he started, ‘and said girlfriend would um…ask me to do certain things. Not just in bed, but outside the bedroom, and one of those things was to…wear a plug for a few hours when we went out. Only sometimes! And only when I felt comfortable doing so. It was just a bit of fun, for both of us and obviously we’re not together anymore but I still sometimes enjoy doing it and, well...I-it’s not like I get off whilst wearing it! It’s mainly the idea of having it there and no one knowing, a kinky little secret – otherwise I tend to forget about it, or it’s just a strange feeling when I sit down or stretch. A-anyways, I swear I’ve never done it on an MJN flight before now. This was my first time and it just so happens that with _my_ stupid luck it turns out today was the day I would burn my fingers and mortify myself in front of you by having to confess all this. A-and ask you to pull it out. If you’ll still help me. Please.’

Douglas’s raised eyebrows stayed raised and he sat for a few moments in silence as he processed this new information about his prim, prissy captain. And partly, he had to admit, because he was enjoying watching Martin squirm as he waited for a response.

‘Gosh Martin, you had it in you all day? I had no idea you were so kinky.’

‘It’s really not a sexual thing most of the time, I promise! I-I wasn’t thinking about stuff like that in the flight deck, or getting distracted whilst we were flying the plane–!’

‘Yes, yes, calm yourself captain. I realise you’d never compromise your professional duty like that,’ Douglas reassured the man with a roll of his eyes. ‘This explains your rather mysterious departure from the flight deck this afternoon.’

‘Ah. Yes. Your um, talk about certain _inappropriate_ things made me remember, a-and I realised the burns might actually mean it would be stuck there. I sort of hoped by some miracle I would be able to use my thumbs or something, but no such luck.’

‘Right.’

Laughter and explanation over, an awkward silence reigned.

‘So…?’ Douglas finally ventured. ‘How are we going to do this?’

Martin pulled a face, resigned to his fate.

‘Right, well, it’s not exactly complicated. You just need to um, grip the end and pull it out. Slowly. And I do mean slowly. I-it might be best if I lie on my side on the bed and um…just lower my pants. Then you can um…yeah. If that’s all right.’

‘Martin, you’re the one losing your dignity here, not me. I rather think _you_ get to dictate the way I pull sex toys out of your arse.’

Martin pulled another face out of embarrassment, but just nodded before he lay down on the bed. There was a moment’s hesitation, then he turned on his side and hooked his fingers carefully under the waistband of his pants, inching the material down until it was tucked against the top of his thighs.

An unexpectedly shapely pair of buttocks (for such a scrawny looking man) were revealed, and between them a shiny black circle of silicone. Douglas stared. As funny as the idea had been to think Martin had something stuck up his bum, facing the reality was actually quite awkwardly intimate.

Feeling a blush creep up his neck, and rather glad Martin was facing the other way, Douglas approached the bed and knelt down so he was at the right height for the task ahead. Martin shifted a little on the mattress and Douglas watched as the muscles of his arse shifted too, the smooth cheeks rubbing together, the base of the plug caught between.

Douglas coughed. ‘I ah, might have to hold you open a little. To um, get at the thing.’

Martin stiffened and Douglas felt his own slowly reddening face heat up at the mild suggestiveness of what he’d just said. But the younger man just nodded shortly, resolutely not looking back at him, and simply lay there waiting.

Reaching out with one hand, Douglas spread the man’s cheeks, desperately trying not to think about how warm and soft Martin’s skin was as he did so. Then with the other hand he grasped the end of the plug and, gently as he could, began to ease it out. There was an audible gasp at the first pull and Douglas froze.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes!’ Martin squeaked. ‘F-fine! Just keep going.’

Under the other man’s previous advice to go slowly, Douglas kept going, and bit his lip as the increasing girth of the plug began to stretch the pink skin of Martin’s hole tight around its circumference. It wasn’t a particularly long plug (although the idea of having a couple of inches of bulbous silicone tucked away up there made Douglas squirm), but it felt like it took forever to come out. As the end finally pulled loose both men gave a sigh of relief.

Martin’s hole wasn’t gaping, but it was clearly loosened by the plug and the skin around the ring was wonderfully flushed and red. Douglas couldn’t help feeling curious about what that felt like, how sensitive it must be after having something in there for hours on end. How it felt when it was full. He wondered whether his imagined idea of pain and discomfort was in any way accurate, or whether the weighty press of the plug somehow pressed in all the right places when it was settled in there, rubbing sweetly against a secret spot…

He quickly turned away, clearing his throat as Martin sat up and hurriedly pulled his pants back over his hips. With a flush that reached his ears, Martin turned round and took the plug hurriedly from Douglas’s hands.

'Th-thank you, Douglas. I um, I really appreciate you doing this.’

He gave a weak smile and self-consciously glanced up at the older man.

‘Well, I couldn’t exactly leave you squirming all night with that thing in you, could I.’ Douglas tried to joke, keenly aware that his face was as red as Martin’s.

‘Haha, no,’ Martin chuckled awkwardly. ‘I’ll um…I’ll just…’ He pointed to his luggage and quietly got up to put the plug away.

For a moment all that could be heard was the sound of the zipper, conscientiously loud in the ensuing silence. Strangely flustered, Douglas attempted to regain his usual blasé, self-assured front. But what ended up coming out of his mouth was, ‘Does it really feel good wearing a plug?’

‘W-what?’ Martin stood up from where he had been crouched on the floor, blinking at Douglas in surprise.

_Bugger._

‘I mean it’s just, I can imagine there are bigger things out there, but that bumpy looking thing didn’t exactly look like the most comfortable, never mind pleasurable, object to tuck away in your passage.’

Now it was Martin’s turn to stare. ‘Are you honestly asking me what’s so good about wearing butt plugs?’ His cheeks were still flushed, but Martin’s expression was growing more bemused than flustered by the second. 

‘Well I understand the mechanics of the apparently blessed prostate and such, just not having something simply sitting in there. I don’t really have any experience of my own to draw on, so…’

‘Nothing anal at all? 

‘It’s not exactly come up on the menu for _me_ , no.’

‘So I, Martin Crieff, have done a multitude of sex acts _you_ , the self-proclaimed Sky God Douglas Richardson, haven’t – even with your _marathon_ of ex-girlfriends?’ Martin was positively smirking now.

 _How on earth did the tables turn so quickly?_ He’d lose his advantage to tease Martin at this rate, especially if the man got up the courage to quip back about this particular conversation in future digs.

‘Yes, yes, don’t look so smug. And I hardly think wearing a butt plug counts as a _multitude_ of sex acts.’ Douglas folded his arms defensively over his chest, ruffled, aware that his retort was rather petty and weak. The whole situation was slipping unexpectedly out of his control.

‘You said nothing anal. Fingering, rimming, pegging,’ Martin listed each one off on his fingers. ‘My last girlfriend was pretty fun; she introduced me to a lot of things. And don’t tell me any rubbish about it all being too _gay_ , as if that’s in any way insulting or even remotely logical.’ The man rolled his eyes.

‘I wouldn’t! I’d hope you thought of me as more open-minded than that Martin,’ Douglas protested, prickling. ‘I was just curious about it after all this…fuss tonight. It’s not something I’ve ever really thought about, and since you’ve suddenly become an expert source of knowledge...’

Martin wore an expression that could only be described as sceptical.

‘Right, well. Yes, it feels good for me, glands and prostate and such. But not necessarily for everyone. Other than that I’m hardly going to dish out the juicy details of my sex life for you Douglas.’ Martin Crieff of all people shouldn’t be able to raise his eyebrow with quite so much subtle amusement and joshing implied, but right now he was managing it rather well.

Douglas felt a bit at sea. This whole bloody thing had gone topsy-turvy on him. ‘Fine. Of course. Your prerogative,’ he drawled, and sat down on his bed to take off his shoes, hoping that the regrettable conversation would finally come to an end.

‘Good. Now shut up and go to bed,’ Martin ordered, getting into his own bed and reaching across for the switch on his table lamp. ‘You’ve already had to prod around my arse this evening, and I won’t allow you to prod around my thoughts and opinions on specific sexual activities either. Goodnight, Douglas.’

With that he clicked off his bedside light and rolled over to face the other way, leaving Douglas somewhat bewildered and feeling thoroughly dismissed as he sat in the shadows cast from his own lamp. Deciding it would be inadvisable to test this bizarre turn of fate any further, he resigned himself to silence and got himself into bed.

As he waited for sleep to come he wondered whether he’d always remember this MJN flight as the day a combination of Martin, toasting grills and butt plugs somehow managed to _not_ end up gaining Douglas a stack of favours and hilarity in his corner, but a strange combination of discomfiture, sexual curiosity and chastisement...


End file.
